Recently, fish are considered to be the bioindicators of metal contamination in environmental monitoring because fish species are strongly respond to stress conditions.

A study was undertaken to assess the enrichment of heavy metal such as Lead (Pb), Cadmium (Cd), Chromium (Cr), Manganese (Mn), Nickel (Ni) and Ferrum (Fe) contamination in Edulabad Water Reservoir (EBWR) which is located in Medchal district of Telangana state, highly polluted with industrial effluents. Cyprinus carpio (common scale carp) is a cheap and high proteinaceous fish used as food for human beings, living in polluted EBWR was chosen for the study. Heavy metals in water samples and its bioaccumulation in various tissues including liver, kidney and gill of the fish growing in the reservoir were analyzed along with glycogen and lipids contents. A parallel study was conducted in water samples and fishes collected from Bibinagar, Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri district fresh water reservoir because it is less polluted, located 30 km from EBWR. The results obtained in present study revealed that the bioaccumulation is higher and the glycogen and lipid contents are lower in the fish of EBWR when compared to Bibinagar fresh water reservoir.

The water and fish samples were collected in three seasons namely pre-monsoon (February-May), monsoon (June-September) and post monsoon (October-January) in each year. Three water samples were collected in three stations, thrice in each season from each tank in cleaned polythene bottles. These are tightly stoppered and used for heavy metal analysis from June 2005 to May 2007.


The metal concentrations in EBWR reservoir were found to be higher than Indian standard limits and exhibiting the following sequence,

Fe > Pb > Cr > Ni > Cd.

The heavy metals could find their way into the human food chain, we analyzed bioaccumulation of these metals in the fish tissues. The bioaccumulation of these metals in fish tissues were of the following trend,
Cd > Cr > Fe > Ni > Pb.

Higher bioaccumulation factors were found for Cd in liver, gill and kidney indicated the sensitivity of fish to this metal even at low concentrations